By JAMES K. PHILIPS (NYT)

Published: August 23, 2006

Prosecutors charged two 20-year-old college students with murder in the bombing of a Moscow market on Monday that killed 10 people and wounded more than 40, and said the attack was racially motivated. The Interfax news agency reported that the suspects said they did it because ''there are too many Asians'' at the Cherkizovsky Market. The bomb went off in a cafe in the center of the ethnically diverse marketplace, killing Uzbeks and Tajiks, as well as Russians. No Chinese citizens died, contrary to earlier reports by officials who said five had died. On Monday, the authorities also described the attack as criminal and blamed gangs fighting for control of Moscow's lucrative and largely unregulated markets. The suspects, Oleg Kostyryov and Ilya Tikhomirov, were arrested near the market. Officials said they were not part of any extremist organization, and Interfax reported that they said they had learned how to build bombs through the Internet. JAMES K. PHILIPS (NYT)